Search - Shams, Amy Rigby :: Quilt

Blankets of folk and country warmed by sweet harmony vocals

Daniel J. Hamlow | Narita, Japan | 03/30/2004

(5 out of 5 stars)

"Quilt features a mixture of country/alt-folk, with harmonies recalling Simon and Garfunkel, the Everlys, and of course the Bangles, the Shams were a short-lived female trio in the early 90's who released this album and the Sedusa EP before calling it a day. Those sweet harmonies seem metaphoric to the warming layers of cotton, wool, or whatever is stitched between the bed coverlets that make a...well, a quilt.The opening track, a country/folk tune with a guitar that goes into CCR-like riffs at times, "It'll All Catch Up To You Someday," is a song of karmic payback, and about a guy with good looks, good job, good money, who thinks he has it all and doesn't espouse the title of a song playing on the jukebox, Otis Redding's "Try A Little Tenderness," and who flees upon getting close to someone.Two moody songs in a row: The "Dark Angel" is a celestial character who is blamed for the imperfect and not too worthwhile way people live, thus retaining their fall from grace. "Dressed To Kill" about a bored woman who goes out seeking thrills, was the song that introduced me to them on KRUX Radio at NMSU. "Only A Dream", which sports some mid-paced Jeff Lynne-style rhythms.The wry simile-ridden "Watching The Grass Grow" is a light nod to tempered skiffle. Sample lines: "waiting for you to love me is like waiting for it to snow...in Florida."The lazy strumming acoustic of "Ice Tea" is accompanied by the usual harmonies as well as imagery of simply relaxing the day away and sipping ice tea on the front porch, be it watching the world go by, a black cat stretching its muscles, and watching the palm trees sway. And then that magical mantra-like refrain: "I don't wanna work today." If the US suffers from a sudden bout of worktime hooky, blame...no, praise this song.The acapella/doo-wop "File Clerk Blues" is a funny ditty about a very put-upon office worker whose unrewarding stressed out duties give her the "long-term temporary, not even a secretary/make-another-copy-for-me file clerk blues" to the point that she's doing it in her dreams.There are some imaginative double-entendres in the upbeat guitar pop of the service station crush song "Down At The Texaco," where one is unsure whether she or the car she drives needs a tuneup or bodywork from the handsome attendant.Another bit of steel-guitared Simon & Garfunkel type mellowness, is the conversation at "Brown's Diner," where the married female protagonist's hands are thematic, be it her expertise , her wedding ring, and the manicures she never had since her marriage, symbolize the clean slate before the marriage takes over. The hands seem to mean life, with her shaking hands against the glass meaning she's had it rough.
"Time" is the Shams' turn at philosophy, on the uncertainty of life and how it's impossible to know the meaning of it all until "you're stepping into your hearse." Only by taking life by uncertainty's permission, do we seem never to lose. One of the better songs."Always With Me" has the moodiness and guitar strum that recalls Fleetwood Mac's "Gold Dust Woman." Twelve bite-sized songs clocking at thirty-one minutes, so yes, it's a short album, and produced by Lenny Kaye of Patti Smith fame. Guitarist Amy Rigby would be the only one to get solo albums under her belt after the group's dissolution. Quilt is for someone who likes Simon & Garfunkel, the Bangles, or any girl group specializing in harmony-style singing."